Game Review: Dragonic Online

So what kind of game genre(s) do you like? Perhaps it’s a good first person shooter, or post apocalyptic, or maybe even racing. Personally I have always been a fan of role playing games (RPGs), but it was not until just a few days ago that I finally entered the world of massively-multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs). I’m still not sure if this was a good thing to do since this type of game tends to consume its players, but I still have faith that I won’t get to addicted to it. We’ll see how that long that confidence lasts.

A friend of mine was looking at new released games when we came across Dragonica Online. Thinking that it met the requirements for my assignment, and that the graphics looked kind of cute, I decided that I was going to play it. In the game you make your character so he or she can be one of four classes; warrior, magician, archer, or thief. Each class has its own; town, armor, weapons, skills, and a choice of two different career pathways. Once you have selected your class you are able to customize your character and name it, and now the story begins.

You start your journey on a lone road heading toward the town of your class, since I chose thief I was heading toward Back Alley, when suddenly you hear something calling you. The voice belongs to a small, cute (?) blue creature that is flying toward you. This little guy is going to be your own personal guide around Dragonica. Yay! right? No not really. He speaks incredibly slowly and you just want to keep hitting the space bar, since it’s an online game keyboard and mouse are used, so you can read what he’s trying to say. Furthermore he has the worse timing you can imagine. The guy is usually quite and just floats around behind you, but when he does talk it is during a conversation with a non player character (NPC), or worse when in battle. So you end either missing what the person you’re trying to talk to is saying or are getting attacked. The most annoying thing is that it doesn’t tell you half the things you need to know. It tells you that the “z” key allows you to use the portals but it doesn’t tell you that, if for example you’re a thief, that holding down “z” allows you to use a charge attack. You get this tidbit of information by pressing the “esc” key that bring up your controls. He also doesn’t tell you how to equip items for a good 3-4 hours into the game, which by this time you’ve probably figured it out yourself. So anyway once he has introduced himself and what not, you hear people screaming. Apparently the town is being attacked by wolves. The guard who you are now talking to decides to allow you to take on the job. I don’t know why he does or thinks he can trust me considering he simply refers to me as “Thief”, maybe he’s bit hit on the head one to many times. Taking up the job the action portion of the game finally begins.

The actual game play is pretty fun once you get the hang of the controls, or you change them to your liking. You get a variety of attacks, spells if you’re a magician, which can be chained to create a sweet little combo. Being an MMORPG you can play alone or you can team up with friends to take on bosses or accompany each other on quests. If you have friends you can create a four person team, another thing you’re not told how to do, by clicking on an icon on the lower right hand of the screen. This is a great asset for quests that require you to defeat a level, numerous times occasionally, where the boss has about 10 or more minions surrounding him. Having one person running around distracting the boss and the other(s) fighting helps prevent the death of all the players.

The graphics as I stated earlier are rather cute, but not in a its so cute it make you ill sort of way. The background is 3 dimensional, so you can jump on to crates or other structures including buildings. This is nice if you’re trying to get away from an enemy and heal. The characters and monsters look 2 dimensional and rather cartoonish. The different dimensional aspects of the game surprisingly complement one another rather well. The monsters have a comic effect when they die, as do you for that matter. When your character dies it falls to the ground mouth open and tongue sticking out. The game itself is well lit, except when you’re in towns then its night, and has a good balance of color and depth.


I would have to say that people should give this game a chance and play it. Just keep in mind that while the game does have some flaws, that as I write this review the game hasn’t been out for half a month yet. So the creators will more than likely fix the game’s problems as time goes on and a great game will emerge.


Interested in playing? Here’s the website! http://dragonica.thqice.com/index.html

Just how much should society worry about videogames?

Videogames a harmless pastime? Or a plague that is taking over the world? For most gamers this is a rather stupid question that is answered by the prior. However, for non-gamers, especially parents, this question poses a very real concern. Both sides have different experiences with the item in question and therefore have different opinions of what the correct answer is. However, maybe the answer isn’t one of the options given; perhaps it in their own right they are both write.

People with hands on experience with videogames have more knowledge on the topic, and therefore should be able to form an educated opinion. However, this opinion is extremely biased favoring the game industry, and therefore are not going to see all the problems that games may contain. To them it is an experience of living as someone other than them self in a world that is not their own. Getting a chance to sniper the enemy in the head when they are being hunted down by a mob of monsters or the undead is very rewarding, it means you get to live longer. However, to the person who walks in the room to see the player sniping people may think that they’re happy about killing, and miss the point of what they’re really doing. As Stephen Totilo pointed out in this review on “Resident Evil 5”, “A lot of genuinely horrible actions depicted in video games don't seem horrible when viewed by the player of a game. They horrify only the onlookers watching you play -- or watching the trailer of someone else playing.”

Being unaware of what most videogames are about, many parents only see that their children spend hours a day on them. When they do happen to read the back of the case and they see that it says “mature content” they naturally assume the worst, but you know what they say about assuming. If they do watch their children play they may see the situation described above and fear that their child is planning the next Columbine shooting. What these viewers don’t seem to understand is that most gamers play these games because they either would never or could never do these things in real life. If parents are worried about which videogames their children play they should also be weary of what movies they watch. If, for example, parents allow their children to watch action movies where there is a lot of killing, then why, when they see those children play action videogames should they freak out? What is the difference between the two? Is it only due to being a spectator for the movie, and being the “in” the movie for a videogame? It seems like the parents should be happy that the children have enough sense to only be imitating the action where it is safe and fictional, and not out in the real world.

Both views are reasonable, because while a lot of games are harmless, there are those that go overboard. In the end if non-gamers really see videogames corrupting the youth then all they have to do is not buy them the game system, because without the system you can’t play the games. Besides, what kid can afford an over $300 game system?

Monkey Island

There I was on Mêlée Island, a town that sat on the docks. I had never been here before but I knew that this was where I needed to be. The place that would help me fulfill my dream. My dream of becoming a pirate! In order to do this I had to go to the toughest and most pirated filled place on this island- The Scumm Bar. If you could make it here you were well on your way to becoming a true pirate, which is just what I wanted. I learned many things at The Scumm Bar like what the pirate drink Grog is made of and how you should never enter the kitchen while the cook is in there. I was even able to talk to three important looking pirates who told me to complete three tests so I could become a pirate. Yes! Now I could prove that I am pirate material. I had to learn how to swordfight, steal something and then go on a guest for the treasure of Mêlée Island, which just happens to be lost.

Now that I knew what to I decided to go around town and see what I could get to help me on my quests. While doing this I entered a strange building with many strange and probably unsanitary things hanging from the walls and ceiling. That’s when I saw it just sitting there; I could help but to take it. Besides how often do you get to see a real rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle? Walking in a little further a met a strange lady who knew exactly who I was and what I needed to know. This is how I met the Voodoo Lady. Don’t let her name fool you she’s actually quite nice and helps me out when ever I’m in a bind.

After exploring the town some more and pocketing everything that would fit into my pants pocket, including a full size shovel and the sword I would use in training, I decided I should start my trails. I went to the great Captain Smirk who taught me the basics of sword fighting. However my task was to master this skill and the only way I could do that was to study under the Sword Master Carla. From her I learned the secret behind winning against pirates in a duel. That secret that I had to master was insults. That’s right in order to beat my teacher of five minutes I had to out wit her in a battle of insult sword fighting. I knew at this moment that I had a long and difficult road ahead of me. I had to fight many wandering pirates to learn enough to survive a battle. Soon I was able to fight with the best of them. “You fight like a dairy farmer” My swashbuckling opponent would exclaim. “How appropriate. You fight like a cow” I would retort without hesitation. With a new arsenal of wit on my side I was able to defeat Carla and move on to my next task.

I made my way to the Governor’s mansion to steal the requested idol when yet again I was stopped in my tracks with awe. Strangely it wasn’t because I was captured by the butler but it occurred when I met Governor Elaine Marley. I knew we were meant to be from the second I saw her. She knew too, even if she did call me names and out rightly hate me. I could tell though, she totally was into me. She let me go but her butler who had caught me decided to dispose of me and throw me in the sea with the idol tied to may leg weighing me down. However, I, the might Guybrush Threepwood, can hold my breath for ten minutes so this was just a minor set back. By tying the idol to me he just guaranteed that my second task was now complete.

My final task was stealing finding the lost treasure of Mêlée Island. After getting lost in the woods I found the giant “X” on the ground. Using the shovel I had pocketed earlier I began to dig. Many hours later I managed to find reach the treasure which turned out to be a T-shirt saying that I had found the treasure. I had completed the task and could now attempt to save the gorgeous Elaine Marley who had been kidnapped, while I was underwater, by the evil-ghost-pirate LeChuck who had been in love with Elaine from before he was dead.

Not knowing what to do, I went back to the Voodoo Lady who told me about the famed Monkey Island. I managed to get a crew and buy a ship from an eccentric salesman named Stan. I didn’t know what to pay attention to his incoherent speech or his non stop over the top gestures. I finally got to Monkey Island after I did all that the Voodoo Lady told me to do. Once on the island, my crew was still being on the ship, I met Herman Toothrot who had been on the island for some time. I decide to go out and explore this famed island. On a hill I found a catapult and I decided to randomly move it just for fun. I move higher up the cliff where I spotted a rock that was close to the edge for even more fun I pushed it off to the ledge below where the catapult was. What I didn’t expect to see was my ship sink due to my previous actions…. I hoped my crew was all right. Realizing I should leave the scene of the crime I once again set off to explore. I ended up in a village where I saw some bananas, I took them. I was immediately captured by the Cannibals of Monkey Island, who would have been far more terrifying if they didn’t wear such strange masks. Once I escaped, I made my way to the Great Monkey Head that the Cannibals worship. I noticed an idol that was made by the cannibal Lemonhead, I don’t know why but there is just something about that guy that I just couldn’t hate.

I managed to unlock the Great Monkey Head with a key that resembled a giant cotton swab. Inserting it into the Great Monkey Head’s ear I realized that a cleaning was long overdue. The opening led me to catacombs that would lead me to LeChuck’s ship, but getting lost was far too easy, I needed help. I went back to the cannibals and talked to them for a bit. They gave me the head of a navigator that had a necklace of eyeballs that would make me invisible to LeChuck’s ghoulish crew.


I made it to the ship and did what my non-cannibalistic cannibal friends told me to do. However LeChuck decided to marry my dear Elaine back at Mêlée Island. It was here that I come face-to-face, sort of, with the evil ghost pirate. I pretty much got my but kicked all over the island until I end up at Stan’s boat shop once again. Scared to the bone I shook a bottle of root beer I had found and used it on LeChuck. Words can not describe my shock and horror as I saw him dissolve into a puddle at my feet. Who would have guessed that root beer was the only way to get rid of ghost?

At last it was over, Elaine could now stop worrying about LeChuck’s beyond the grave love for her and go back to being Governor, and think of your truly of course. I on the other hand had just defeated the most terrifying pirate to ever roam the seas, both while he was living and dead. I was officially a pirate in my mind and could roam free and do what any other pirate would do. That’s right I was going to look for the legendary treasure of Big Whoop.

Genres and a big heaping bowl of I don't care

When you look at a videogame do you pay attention to the genre that it belongs to? If so do you think that it is accurate? Does it even matter? With game developers expanding and trying new ideas it is not surprising that genres would be crossed more often than not. When this is the case it is the advertising teams job to say what the game should be categorized under, but how should they do this?

They could be like Mark J. P. Wolf and say that genres should “take into consideration the dominant characteristics of the interactive experience and the games’ goals and objectives, and the nature of the game’s player-character and player controls” in his 6th chapter of Genre an the Video Game. By doing it Wolf’s way all that needs to be done is figure out which genre is dominant and go from there. What happens though if, lets say, the two genres in the game are close to or are equal to one another in dominance? According to this theory the advertisers would either have to figure out which one has a more prevalent standing in the game or just try and make a good call by choosing one over the other.

If we ignore Wolf’s ideology then another conclusion can be made, one in which the two, or more, genres are mentioned. By doing it this way the player is able to get a better idea of what is in store for them when they start playing the game. If a game says ‘fantasy adventure’ for example you, the player, know that these two genres will both be important in the game play. Given this simple solution of acknowledging and mentioning the cross of genres is not as devastating or drastic as some companies might think. Gamers are well aware that their games are not going to be solely action or first person shooter, but rather that the genres will mix. If gamers only wanted a genre per game then games would so limited that ideas for them would soon run out and one game would be a carbon copy from the one before it. If this were the case then the game industry would soon go under and that would be the end to videogames. However this is not the case and video gamers are more accepting than some people would give them credit for.

I’m curious as to what other people think about the topic. Is the videogame industry doing the right thing in trying to categorize games under only one genre? Or should they accept that games will cross genres?

Blogs and Magazines

Gaming Blogs and magazines are both popular ways in which the average gamer can get the information they need to know before they decide to purchase a game or not. However these to forms of media, while trying to tell readers the same basic thing, vary on many different levels. Mind you I do not mean to say that one is better than the other or anything like that. I simply wish to explore how both forms of media are structured to handle the same topic, videogames.
Blogs for example tend to lean toward the author reviewing his or her experience of a game. This is not to say that some magazines don’t do the same, but that blogs seem to do this more. These blogs can be rather interesting because you get to see how other players viewed and analyzed the game. The most interesting tend to be from people playing massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) since they all have their own unique experiences to recount. While blogs can give their readers hours of reading material as well as a chance for said readers to leave comments about the blog they just read, blogs are not without their problems. The main problem I find with them in general is the way they are written. In Iroquois Pliskin’s Games Journalism Needs Games Journalists not only does she seem to wander from the original topic she also writes in a way that may not be enjoyable for the occasional reader. In this case she not only uses words that would not be in the average person’s vocabulary but she often seems to rant about what ever comes to mind. This latter seems to be a common problem which leads to the main topic of the piece either being briefly touched on or forgotten all together. I believe this is due to the unlimited amount of space they have to write their blogs.
In magazine articles the reader does not always get the in depth look of the game that they want. This is due to the limited space each member of the writing staff of the magazine gets for his or her article. The advantages of this however is that they often get to the point that they are trying to make and they do not stray from said point, and a reader can usually follow them. The disadvantage is that they may not get to say everything about the game they wanted to so important information may be left out of their article.
Since both forms of information can be resourceful it really matters on the reader what he or she wishes to know and which media is preferred.

Videogames and how they are art

Videogames are a fairly young medium by today’s standards, so when someone compares them to the older and more established ones a few heads usually turn. To call videogames a form of art one must justify an explanation. What part of the videogame is considered art; the graphics, the story, the character development, the game play? To simply say that games are a form of art leaves to vague of a definition, so to try and fix this I will try to explain how the different parts of the game all come together to achieve the goal of being called art.
First off the bat, are the graphics. Since videogames have come into being their graphics have improved by leaps and bounds. This suggests however that they only became art once the graphic reached a certain undetermined level. Does that mean though that early game graphics from for example were not art? No, that is not the case. By the technology that we have presently and other early games are rather lacking in the eye candy department. That doesn’t mean society can simply dismiss them though. In comparison it would be like saying that painting a portrait is no longer art because we can simply take a picture of the person. With advances in technology as we move toward the future humans must remember to treasure the effort it took to get to where they currently are. After all if no one painted portraits or tried to capture on canvas or paper what they saw in the first place, then cameras may never have been invented. The same can be said for early games. They didn’t have the tools we have today but if game developers didn’t try then there is no logical reason we would have what we do today.
Even with the best graphics the industry has to offer, without a story there would be far fewer games in the world. A majority of videogames have at least some basic story behind them after all even fighting games have a Story Mode. If a story has the ability where it can draw you in and make you feel like you are a part of it, or it makes you want to keep playing then its art. Art isn’t just about its appearance; it also deals with how it makes its viewers feel.
Classic literature is art because it makes the readers feel for the characters (whether its love or hate depends on the individual and the literature)and brings them into the story.Videogames that have a good story do the same. If a character dies and I don’t mean the kind where you are in battle and can just heal them or resurrect them, but actually dies in the story and you feel sorrow, or in some cases joy, for the death then I would say its art. It is getting an emotional reaction from the player meaning it has done its job of pulling in said player.
In order to get an emotional reaction from the players then the developers have to make a character that would invoke emotions. Due to these conditions character development can be an extremely tricky task. First you have to get the basics of the character down, and you have to make sure that they are believable or it’s an ultimate fail on the developers’ part.
When developing the characters it is important that the theme of the story is kept, for example a highly optimistic happy go lucky house wife for a main character would not work in a post apocalyptic world, then again neither would some one who just mopes about. To get not only the human aspects down but also one where players would enjoy being that character is not only difficult but also worth it. Nobody likes a whining and spineless main character so to get a likable main character is mandatory.
Ah the game play how easily it can make or break a game.
It doesn’t matter how good a game’s story line or graphics are, if the game play sucks then people will not play it. The game play is the only control that the player has in the game, so if the game isn’t user friendly there is a high chance that people will stop playing less than an hour in and sell the game.
For a game to prosper in this respect then they have to have a system that is easy to understand yet still gives the player a challenge. To capture the attention of a player yet challenge them is a difficult task that invites creators to give various difficulties to a game.
If all of these work together than it is in my opinion that a game can rightfully be called art. The only problem here is that everyone will have their own experience with a game and therefore creating their own opinions. If using math terms then the unknown variable which can change the whole outcome of the answer would inevitably be the individual gamer.

Which side do you take?

When you play videogames do you make the character act like you would in the given situation or do you make them do the complete opposite? The type of games that give you a list of actions you can take or phrases that you can say has a certain allure to them that can just draw a person in. This is perhaps due to the 3 dimensional feel that the game gives the character. Not only can you walk around, buy stuff, and do missions as the character but you can determine what that character is thinking. While its fun to execute button combos to defeat your enemy it just isn’t the same as when you get to make the character you’re controlling say or do what you would, or do the exact opposite.
Which ever view you take in this conversation it tends to make one re-evaluate their view of their being. Let just say that for argument’s sake that you always make your character do what you would do. This tactic can be rather fun because in a way you are incorporating yourself into the game. Now when you’re playing the game take a break and think about the things that you just made your character do and compare it to yourself. At times you will realize that you where pretty much the person you thought you were all along, but I’m sure that there are some events that transpired that even surprised you. These things of course can be either good or bad. You may find that you have no interest in the people around you and would rather just get whatever task before you done taking out anyone that tries to gets in our way. On the other hand you may find that you’re the bleeding heart type that can’t say no to someone who sends you on a quest (no matter how ridiculous it is).
Making the character become a polar opposite of you can also be entertaining, if nothing else than difficult. This tactic gives you the chance to see what you would be like if you were a total dick or a goody-to-shoes without the annoying consequences of your actions. It also gives you a chance to play your favorite games again, this time adding some verity to the mix. If you’re not used to playing this way you might find yourself struggling to do, from your perspective, the wrong thing.
Either way you look at this situation it’s fun to give the character a personality and some depth to their character.